SketchUp for Architecture

SketchUp Pro is useful from the earliest stages of schematic design to the end of construction administration. Programming, diagramming, massing, design development, detailing, documentation, responding to RFIs—wherever you need drawings, you need SketchUp Pro.

Produce scaled, accurately dimensioned drawing sets

SketchUp Pro isn’t just for making 3D models. Draw plans, elevations, sections, details, specifications, title blocks and other graphics with LayOut. When your model changes, so does your document. Simple.

Get good, fast

No one wants to waste time learning complicated software. SketchUp Pro is hands-down the most intuitive and easy-to-learn 3D drawing tool on the planet. If you want to be productive within a couple of hours, you’ve come to the right place.

Generate presentation documents

SketchUp Pro includes LayOut, an incredibly powerful tool with features for page layout, drafting, vector illustration and slide presentation. Combine orthographic model views with renderings, photos, diagrams, text and anything else you need to get your point across.

Create compelling visualizations and walkthroughs

Use SketchUp Pro to turn your models into animated walkthroughs and flyovers that explain every detail of your design. Easily show variations, and export images and videos that you can email or post online.

Put together real-time shadow studies

See exactly where shadows will fall at any time of day, on any day of the year, anywhere on earth. SketchUp Pro even lets you create shadow animations that you can send your clients.

Think by drawing in 3D

We designed SketchUp Pro to behave like an extension of your hand—more like a pencil than a piece of clunky software. The idea is (and always will be) to get out of your way so that you can draw whatever you want, however you want.

Iterate quickly through design ideas

We love how architects use layers and layers of tracing paper to develop and improve their ideas. When the medium is simple enough, the barriers to creativity disappear. SketchUp Pro was born to let you iterate.

Visualize complex information in 3D

2D drawings can be tricky to read, but 3D model views are a universal language that anyone can understand. Use SketchUp Pro to get clients, contractors, engineers and inspectors all headed in the same direction.

Import and export CAD and other types of data

Want to start with an existing CAD file? SketchUp Pro can read DXFs and DWGs from any standard CAD package. It can also write CAD files—in 2D and 3D—that can be read by other programs.

Access the world’s biggest repository of 3D models

You don’t have to build everything you need from scratch. In fact, hundreds of thousands of entourage objects—from trees to furniture to people—are available for download from SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse.

Design in context with Google Earth

SketchUp Pro offers seamless integration with Google Earth. Easily import 3D terrain data, aerial photos, street view imagery and contextual models that you can use however you like. And with one click, see your model in context in Google Earth.

Build models from photographs

Use an aerial image from Google Maps as a starting point. Paint faces in your model with Street View imagery—or any other photograph. You can even use SketchUp Pro’s unique Match Photo feature to construct a model using a photo as a perspective underlay.

Architecture Case Studies

Robertson + Walsh Design

Dan Tyree

Chattahoochee Nature Center

Lowney Architecture

Useful throughout your workflow

SketchUp Pro is useful from the earliest stages of schematic design to the end of construction administration. Programming, diagramming, massing, design development, detailing, documentation, responding to RFIs—wherever you need drawings, you need SketchUp Pro.

Produce scaled, accurately dimensioned drawing sets

SketchUp Pro isn’t just for making 3D models. Draw plans, elevations, sections, details, specifications, title blocks and other graphics with LayOut. When your model changes, so does your document. Simple.

Get good, fast

No one wants to waste time learning complicated software. SketchUp Pro is hands-down the most intuitive and easy-to-learn 3D drawing tool on the planet. If you want to be productive within a couple of hours, you’ve come to the right place.

Generate presentation documents

SketchUp Pro includes LayOut, an incredibly powerful tool with features for page layout, drafting, vector illustration and slide presentation. Combine orthographic model views with renderings, photos, diagrams, text and anything else you need to get your point across.

Create compelling visualizations and walkthroughs

Use SketchUp Pro to turn your models into animated walkthroughs and flyovers that explain every detail of your design. Easily show variations, and export images and videos that you can email or post online.

Put together real-time shadow studies

See exactly where shadows will fall at any time of day, on any day of the year, anywhere on earth. SketchUp Pro even lets you create shadow animations that you can send your clients.

Think by drawing in 3D

We designed SketchUp Pro to behave like an extension of your hand—more like a pencil than a piece of clunky software. The idea is (and always will be) to get out of your way so that you can draw whatever you want, however you want.

Iterate quickly through design ideas

We love how architects use layers and layers of tracing paper to develop and improve their ideas. When the medium is simple enough, the barriers to creativity disappear. SketchUp Pro was born to let you iterate.

Visualize complex information in 3D

2D drawings can be tricky to read, but 3D model views are a universal language that anyone can understand. Use SketchUp Pro to get clients, contractors, engineers and inspectors all headed in the same direction.

Import and export CAD and other types of data

Want to start with an existing CAD file? SketchUp Pro can read DXFs and DWGs from any standard CAD package. It can also write CAD files—in 2D and 3D—that can be read by other programs.

Access the world’s biggest repository of 3D models

You don’t have to build everything you need from scratch. In fact, hundreds of thousands of entourage objects—from trees to furniture to people—are available for download from SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse.

Design in context with Google Earth

SketchUp Pro offers seamless integration with Google Earth. Easily import 3D terrain data, aerial photos, street view imagery and contextual models that you can use however you like. And with one click, see your model in context in Google Earth.

Build models from photographs

Use an aerial image from Google Maps as a starting point. Paint faces in your model with Street View imagery—or any other photograph. You can even use SketchUp Pro’s unique Match Photo feature to construct a model using a photo as a perspective underlay.